Revival of the Best Kind
by ninjarune
Summary: Harry loves to run. Draco loves money. Nothing good can happen when their passions collide... Probably. WIP- Updated Fridays (or Saturdays... or both...)


**Revival of the Best Kind**

_A/N-Disclaimer: Well, this happened. A plot bunny that would not allow me to write for _The Magic Theory_. This started out as a one shot, but it will still only be around four to seven chapters in length. So here we go. Oh yeah, I'm still without ownership…_

Harry loved to run.

Once he started, the only thing that reminded him to stop was the fact that there was always work to be done and people to be seen. The first few minutes of a run consisted of Harry trying to clear his head and stop thinking about that work and those people. But, it is not until the end of his run that he would realize that his head had actually cleared. Every time, he tried to mimic how he did it the last time, but it always ended up happening without him remembering how it did.

Aside from the freedom of the mind that came with the runs, Harry enjoyed the physical aspect of it as well. While he didn't think about work and people, the runs made his brain buzz with activity and ideas for random things that he would never put into effect. The further he got into his runs, the more the aches in his legs and side cleared his mind. Suddenly, everything would be crystal clear and the muddy essence of simply existing would fall away.

Harry's heart pounded in in a frenzied beat that would have scare Hermione into thinking he was intentionally hurting himself. But there was nothing wrong with the pain that came with aching muscles. All this pain meant was that Harry wanted to be healthy, and that was what Hermione wanted as well. There should have been no problem with Harry's activity in Hermione's eyes.

In the end, this was Hermione Granger (she didn't want to change her last name even after she married Ron—enough said), though. Every time Harry visited her, she would calmly explain why running was doing him more harm than good, and that Harry should find other ways to take care of himself. No wonder she was one of _those people_ that only _had_ to be seen.

One thing Harry knew for certain, he would never give up running.

Draco loved money.

He loved shaking the hand of a new business partner and mentally calculating how many Galleons he could squeeze out of him before crushing his business into the ground.

Nothing could beat the thrill of imagining a cloud of suspicion fly across their faces even when there was none. While his mind knew there would be no threat, his body remained tense, prepared to attack if one arose. The world clicked into place and he remembered the reason he didn't resent his tedious, business-like life.

He could feel his heart beating like timpani drums. This only made him surer the other would hear and suspicion would flood them. This, of course, only made his heart beat even more excitedly. And so a cycle began.

When Draco's parents would tell him to give up his 'silly' business endeavors, he would simply roll his eyes and continue his meal. Ever since a dramatic increase in his parents attempts, he had restricted communication with them to meals and owls only.

Draco didn't want a wife. Draco didn't want a simple life where his only affect outwardly was monetary support to one thing or another. Draco didn't want to be his father's carbon copy.

Above all, Draco didn't—no, _wouldn't_—give up his money.

_Every great run must come to an end,_ Harry thought glumly as he neared Grimmauld Place and began to slow down.

As he stepped into the entrance hall, he barely stopped himself from startling at Kreacher's sudden appearance in front of him. "Missus Hermione Granger is being the drawing room. She would not listen to Kreacher saying Master Harry is not being in. Refused to leave, she did." Kreacher looked up at Harry with slightly frightened eyes; after all those years, he still hadn't realized the worst way Harry would have punished him was not allowing him to dust the frames or make him take down one of the precious Black portraits.

"It's alright, Kreacher. I'll take care of her. Just go make dinner, yeah?" Not needing any more prompting, Kreacher disappeared with a snap of his fingers, still picking nervously at his ears. Harry took a deep breath, bracing himself for the discussion/argument that was sure to ensue within the next ten minutes. The air left his mouth in a heavy sigh as he went upstairs to face his doom in the drawing room.

The drawing room was one of the two rooms on the second floor with a fireplace. Because of this, the door was always left open, meaning Harry was able to assess Hermione's posture from behind before she could realize he was there. As Harry had expected, Hermione was perched on the comfortable armchair facing the fireplace. Despite the relaxing nature of the chair, Hermione's back was as stiff and tense as a board. Her position and posture alone told Harry everything he wanted to know. She sat in the armchair because she knew Harry preferred it and wanted to make Harry as uncomfortable as possible when she needed to confront him. Her tense posture told Harry she was going to be quite frank and direct.

That only left three possibilities: problems at work, problems at home, or the most common, her problems with Harry.

After his assessment, Harry finally made some noise to alert Hermione he had arrived. Her eyes snapped to him, but he didn't acknowledge her gaze as he moved towards the second best chair of the room. It was another armchair, but didn't recline as the one Hermione was on did. It was close enough to the fire that it was toasty when Harry dropped onto it. Despite his knowledge of Hermione's intentions, he smirked at her and said, "What brings you to my humble abode, 'Mione?"

"Harry, we need to talk."

"Uh-oh, are you breaking up with me?" Harry didn't know what gave him the courage to antagonize Hermione, but he regretted it immediately as her face clouded over.

"Cut the crap, Harry. I'm being serious. It's not as if I don't have enough to deal with without you coming in here from another one of your self-inflicting harm sessions. Now, you are trying to diffuse the tension? Well, it's not going to work. We have _serious_ things to talk about and you know it." Nothing changed in Hermione's posture, except it possibly became even tenser.

"I have a feeling you have serious things to talk _at_ me about. Though, exactly what those are, I don't know yet. Care to enlighten me?" The joking lilt in his voice had all but completely vanished.

Hermione sighed, and finally, part of the tension left her body. "Do you think I'll be successful in talking you out of your runs today, or should I move on to other matters and leave that for the end?"

Harry smiled despite himself. "'Mione, I think it's better off completely off the agenda… You know, forever. But, since I don't see that happening any time soon, start off with truly pressing and scandalous matters before turning on me. You know how much I love Ministry gossip." At the final sentence Hermione gave an odd, amused smile and immediately Harry knew she was thinking about the time Marcus Demuth dropped his wand in the toilet and tried, unsuccessfully, to sue the Ministry.

Unfortunately, the smile was gone as quickly as it appeared and Harry's body tensed. _Something must be seriously wrong_, he thought looking at Hermione's now too calm face. His fears were proved right moments later when she began to speak. "So much is going wrong, Harry. The house-elf bill is going nowhere as of now." Harry only resisted the urge to roll his eyes but the seriousness in her eyes. That bill would never go anywhere. It was unreasonable. "Ron is working ridiculous hours now that he's Head Auror and the recent rise in crime. Draco Malfoy is ruining the economy with all the businesses he's destroying. That hag Warbeck's latest album is horrifying in the amount of innuendo." She shuddered slightly, probably recalling the skimpiness of the garments Warbeck had on the cover of her latest album. "And, finally _you_ are trying to kill yourself. Oh, and your company's stock has grown. That's not really bad news, but it _will be _if you die."

Harry's interests peaked during only two parts throughout Hermione's speech. Nothing was new if Ron was being a workaholic as always. Crime_ always_ fluctuated. Harry _would_ say Warbeck had passed her prime, but that hag _never_ had a prime to begin with. Finally, Hermione always thought Harry's runs were a form of attempted suicide. Honestly, Hermione was _too_ content in her simple desk job. Harry thought if he could convince her to come out running with him that he'd have her hooked. But of course, she never agreed or came up with excuses to get out of it.

What Harry did find interesting was Malfoy's ability to crush businesses and his own company's stock rising. With the speed at which it rose, Malfoy _must_ be aware of how valuable it could potentially be. If he could get Malfoy to partner with his company and then destroy it, Harry would have _more time to run_ and _less work_ to do.

For the rest of the conversation, until Hermione stormed out when Harry would not back down, Harry planned. He left a superficial, Hermione-pleasing Harry on the surface as he thought. He planned how to catch the attention of Malfoy. He planned how to make the whole plan look like a happy (for Harry) accident. Mostly, he planned out his days of nothing but running, eating and sleeping.

(Perhaps bathing, too.)

_And another one bites the dust._

Draco smirked as the owner of Sharma's Shammery lost her mind—quite literally. Her company had crumbled before her eyes. When she looked at him, his face turned to one of pure sympathy, but reverted back as she began to wail once more. Draco wasn't a sadist, but he loved money and this was just one more way to get it.

"H-How could th-this have happened?" Sniffle, sniffle. "You said my expenses were secure. Now we are losing money faster than we can earn it! This is your entire fault! You did this on purpose and I'll see to it that you are punished for it! You and your entire company are going down." Tears were still streaming down her face and Draco almost laughed at the hope he saw there.

She had truly thought she could beat him after so many others had failed. Yet, people went to him even after hearing the rumors. For the most part, those in the ministry had been the only ones fully aware of the underhanded dealings of his company. Others had suspected, but to be aligned with a Malfoy was something that had never lost its worth.

"You will do nothing, because you would only embarrass yourself in the process. I will offer you a settlement and kindly take your failing company off your hands. All you have to do is _back-off_ completely and quietly." Thought his voice was trying to be reassuring, he prided himself in being able to pull it off along with a razor-sharp voice that had her truly weighing her options and wincing in the process.

"A settlement of how much?" Sharma sounded broken and resigned. Now, Draco offered her a substantial but uneven to its worth price, and she would be forced to take it.

"Fifteen-thousand Galleons." The company, even in its turmoil, was worth fifty-thousand or more if it was cut up as Draco had planned to do with it.

Sharma bit her lip, trying to hold back her tears and maintain a semblance of dignity. "You have a deal. I expect the money in my vault by the end of the business day." She reached out her hand, and Draco shook firmly as his heart began to race.

She left without another word as soon as the handshake was over. Draco sat back down behind his desk and sighed contentedly.

Money sure was a great thing.

"Mr. Potter, Ron Weasley is here to see you. He says it's urgent." Jaslene, Harry's assistant, had her head poking into Harry's spacious office, looking half-apologetic.

"Send him in, Jaslene." In the few moments it took for Jaslene to retrieve and bring Ron to his office, Harry looked around, making sure there were no nefarious plots on his wall—especially given the nature of his most recent one.

Harry also took the moment to delight in his office. He truly loved not only the office, but the entire building. One entire wall of his office was glass that looked over an alley that adjoined to Diagon. The other three were a sleek modern grey that fit the simplistic room design. Harry's desk was next to the glass wall so that if he felt particularly irked by a client, he could turn to his side, look out the window and give the client his striking profile stare. It was also near the back of the office, far from the door—the prime spot in the event of an attack. Closer to the door, there was a set of four green chairs around a handsome, silver coffee table. Near the back of the room, just a few feet from Harry's desk stood a fireplace that did not touch the floor, but stood two feet from the ground. Another accent to the room came from the green horizontal lines five inches from the ceiling.

The color scheme was so boldly Slytherin that Harry had to pat himself of the back. It was also cunningly Slytherin to the point that Ron complimented the room the first time he had seen it. It truly was a room Harry was proud of.

"Harry?" Ron had changed so much in the six years since the war in ways Hermione could not have. Ron's presence in a room demanded attention and recognition. Especially in the burgundy Auror robes with the gold lining that screamed Head Auror. Even when Ron's voice was slightly hesitant when addressing his best friend of twelve years. In some latent way, Harry thought Ron would always look for Harry's approval of his actions over anyone else's.

"Come in, Ron, for Merlin's sake. Do you want some tea? Jaslene makes the most perfect brew, as you well know. I suspect witchcraft." Harry winked at Ron and finally Ron made himself comfortable with a huge grin, plonking himself in the chair in front of Harry's desk. "I'll take that as a yes. Jaslene?"

Said witch's face was poking through the door in under a minute. "Yes, Mr. Potter?"

"It's _Harry_. Would you mind making us some of your delicious tea? We would be forever indebted to you." Both Harry and Ron made overly desperate faces and Jaslene had no choice but to give in, laugh and shake her head.

"Only because you are my boss, _Harry_." Jaslene replied in a pseudo-stern voice, making sure to add emphasis on the irony of her statement. At this, the boys made proclamations of adoration, wedding proposals and kissy faces. Jaslene smiled, but didn't hold back from making an obscene gesture before going to prepare the tea.


End file.
